A college basketball coach is forced to break the rules in order to get the players he needs to stay competitive.A college basketball coach is forced to break the rules in order to get the players he needs to stay competitive.A college basketball coach is forced to break the rules in order to get the players he needs to stay competitive.
- Awards
- 1 nomination
- Butch
- (as Anfernee 'Penny' Hardaway)
- Rick Pitino
- (as Richard Pitino)
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaIn the scene where Bob Cousy shoots baskets, he was told to just keep shooting them as he talks to Nick Nolte, regardless of whether the baskets went in or not. But Cousy never missed, prompting Nolte to ad-lib his reaction.
- GoofsAlgiers, Louisiana was portrayed as being in a rural setting. Algiers is actually an urban neighborhood in the 15th Ward of New Orleans.
- Quotes
Pete Bell: You know, some place in America right now, there's some 10-year-old kid. He's out there on that playground, and he's playing, he's dribbling between his legs, he's going left, he's going right, he's already above the rim, and he's stuffing it home. And you know what's going to happen to this kid? Five minutes from now he's gonna be surrounded by ya. Agents, corporate sponsors, and coaches, I mean, people like me just drooling over this kid because he holds our future employment in his hands. I mean, that's what we made this game. That's what we've done. You know, the best coaching job I ever did, that wasn't tonight, it was last season. When we were 14-15 and we had a losing season, but goddammit, those kids gave me their heart! They gave me everything they had, they played up to the MAXIMUM of their ability! They gave it everything, and it wasn't good enough! Wasn't good enough for me, wasn't good enough for you, wasn't good enough for anybody! That's pathetic. I mean, it's really pathetic. I've become what I despise. I cheated my profession, cheated myself, I cheated basketball. There's two words I didn't think would ever come out of my mouth, I didn't think I'd ever be able to say... I quit.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Siskel & Ebert: The Getaway/Blank Check/My Girl 2 (1994)
Basketball movies are often the `weak team overcomes' type and are not exactly great. Some are good (Hoosiers) but most are mildly distracting at best (The air up there), few reach the heights of Hoop Dreams. However Blue Chips is good because it manages to cast a critical eye over the real world of college ball there are no small town winners, there are no `kids with hearts of gold' etc instead it is as much a business as the NBA and the stakes are high to get the best players.
Bell shows us how he must juggle doing what's right but also doing what the players want in order to get a winning team. This is refreshing rather than yet another sports movie with the same old cliches. The down side is that it doesn't go far enough in my mind and it doesn't offer solutions.
Nolte is good and is really convincing as a coach even if he's a bit OTT at times on the sidelines. His support is great in the form of McDonnell, Walsh, Woodard and the real players of Shaq and Penny do OK. The cast is also filled out with plenty of coaches, commentators and such from real life so there's plenty to see.
Overall this is one of my favourite basketball movies simply because it tells it like it is even if it does have it's weaknesses.
- bob the moo
- Jul 24, 2002
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Details
Box office
- Gross US & Canada
- $23,070,663
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $10,123,605
- Feb 21, 1994
- Gross worldwide
- $23,070,663